We’re very skeptical about the scale argument, as you might expect. There’s a lot of aspects to this subject that are not very well understood.
…
So in all of this stuff, the scale arguments are pretty bogus in our view because it’s not the quantity or quality of the ingredients that make a difference, it’s the recipes. We think we’re where we are today because we’ve got better recipes and we have better recipes because we spent 10 years working on search improving the performance of the algorithm.

Wednesday Google’s chief scientist Peter Norvig shared his view:

We don’t have better algorithms than anyone else. We just have more data.

And this is why you see so many hucksters hyping trash, committing fraud, scamming users, cutting corners, and working legal loopholes at launch time to try to grow marketshare *at any cost*

Build the scale and you have the cashflow and feedback mechanisms in place to test viral marketing strategies, improve conversion rates, increase real (and perceived) relevancy, and lock in users.

“In a July 19, 2005 e-mail to YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen wrote: ‘jawed, please stop putting stolen videos on the site. We’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.’”
…
“Our dirty little secret… is that we actually just want to sell out quickly,” said Karim at one point. In an e-mail, Chen talked about “concentrat[ing] all of our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil.” – Ars Technica

Welcome to the exciting world of innovation in online media!

Without brand you have nothing.

With brand even a wounded duck full of unauthorized scraped content like YouTube or Mahalo somehow manages flight, at least for a while. Then you only need to find someone dumb enough to buy the growth story and purchase the bag of smoke before the fire emerges.

Of course people don’t have to cut corners, lie, cheat, and steal to build a real business. Those are the strategies employed by people trying to sell value where none exists. You can do just fine by dominating a small niche THEN leveraging data to grow. It is not sexy. You probably can’t hype it to the media. It might not lead to an 8 or 9 figure payday. But then you won’t have to describe your strategy as “whatever tactics, however evil.”

Related posts:

1. Facebook Gets Into Customized Data Centers
2. Google: a new signal in search ranking algorithms!
3. Google Makes World Bank Data Available in Search

If you are selling a site which you just want to get rid of and lack passion for then there is nothing wrong with being fairly transparent and shopping it for the maximum amount you can get at an auction or such. And if you have high growth and contact an investment banker to get a bidding war going then limited transparency can help then. But if you have a high growth site in a high growth field and there is only one company trying to buy your site then transparency is the opposite of leverage. It can only work against you.

Scam Website Purchase Offers: How They Work

Over the last couple days a company made a pretty fair offer for one of our websites. He did so knowing that I wasn’t going to give up our analytics data UNTIL the cash was in my bank account, and that he could infer a lot of the data from the search results. This was like the 5th time they tried buying the website and these points were made to them on every attempt.

The guy said “if that sounds good to you I will get a Letter of Intent over to you.” I said sure, and in return they were like “ok now we need access to all your stats for our due diligence document to fill out the LOI.”

And that is a big pain point / problem.

WHY?

Data is Valuable

Data is valuable. Anyone who has the money to buy one of your best websites and has people scouring the web trying to make such deals probably has other sites in the same vertical. It is a near certainty. If you give all your data to someone *in an attempt to sell* what you may end up with is a weaker site and no buyer.

And if you know they already have other sites in the same space, well then you just shorted your own company’s stock in exchange for nothing but a clown outfit.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

The people who ask you to give up all your business data, and want exclusivity on a deal while they mull it over and debate it and re-price it, while pillaging your analytics data are actually telling you “we think you are an ignorant jackass and lack respect for you.”

The sequence goes like: hello how about I buy that from you for $xx. Sound good? Here now give me all your data and I will give you a shady low ball offer of $y and then go buy a similar site from a more ignorant seller. We only buy at far below market rates! Don’t worry. We *WILL* use your data against you!

If they make and offer they make an offer. If they want to steal you data they want to steal you data. But if they already make an offer based on their observations there is no need to grab all the data to reposition the offer – in short it is a scam.

Business Reciprocity 101

A slimy business person doesn’t trust other people because they think everyone else is just as slimy as they are. So here is the test to use on such offers: tell them “sure you can have all my analytics data right after you give me all of their analytics data.” If they say you are being unreasonable then tell them to look in the mirror.

We have made quick page title change suggestions on a client website that have literally immediately brought in millions of Dollars for their business (and as consultants we only got crumbs for the value add), BUT if you have a competitor who is considering buying your site they can look for the areas where you are strong that they missed and simply clone them. If their domain is far more authoritative they just took a chunk of your traffic. And you gave it to them – free of charge.

We have had competitors clone some of our strategy in some areas, but on numerous occasions they have picked the wrong keyword variations or the wrong modifiers. If you just give them the data for free there is no guesswork. They WILL use their capital to steamroll over you.

Why NDA Contracts Are Garbage

Sure some such companies claim to be professional and that their NDA has some value. But does it? Do you actually have the capital sitting around to do a legal battle with a billion Dollar company with more in-house lawyers than you have total staff? What kind of ROI would such litigation earn IF you won it? What are the odds of you winning? Can you actually prove how the used your data? How much time, effort, and stress would go into such a battle?

Why Do People Purchase Websites?

If people are coming you to buy your site they are coming to you for a reason. There is some strategic value, or some level of synergy to where they feel they can add value to your position. As an example, a big company like Yahoo! or eBay or Amazon.com or Google or BankRate or Monster.com or WebMD could…

• use a purchase as a public relations opportunity to make the purchased website stronger
• integrate it into their network to own more of the market and have better control over pricing
• cross promote it on their network
• cross promote other options in their network to that site’s audience
• use it as a wedge to influence markets in way they don’t want connected with their core brand
• expand their market breadth without diluting their brand
• etc etc etc

The point being very few people buy a business based on thinking they can/will keep it exactly the same. Rarely do you buy a raw domain name based on its earnings…you buy it based on the potential for what you can develop on it, and the growth + opportunity you see in that market.

Is there risk in the growth? Absolutely. What successful investor hasn’t lost money? But that risk is discounted in the price of the site…after all, the future market growth and site growth are not passed onto the seller after the site has already been sold.

Have I lost money on some website purchases? Absolutely, but on average we have come out ahead. You don’t need perfect data to make a purchase so long as you have some good ideas on how to add value. You can have a few duds and come out ok so long as you have some winners and ride the winners hard.

What Data Discounts: It is Backwards Looking

Any attempt to get the exact earnings AND all the keyword data for a website for free is simply exploitative. It gives the buyer leverage while placing the seller in a vulnerable situation. It moves the purchase away from strategic value to some b/s multiples of earnings which rarely accounts for *why* the purchase is being made.

Is it a defensive purchase? Is it a purchase where there is an instant synergy and strategic value add? Do they have more data than you and do they see strong market growth in the near future?

Strategic purchases like YouTube don’t sell for over a Billion dollars based on a backward multiple of earnings. When companies buy important websites they don’t insult the owner with a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 year multiple. The S&P 500 has historically traded around a 15 or 16 multiple, so even a 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 year multiple is not great if you have some strong strategies to increase organic search traffic, build new revenue streams, and improve conversion rates.

If a company trading at a 30x P/E multiple offers to buy your site for an 6x multiple, then they get a higher revenue cut due to their market position suddenly they have purchased your website for something like a 3x multiple… about 1/10th of what the market is valuing their enterprise at.

If they hold back some of the payout for a year then they are paying for a portion of the site out of future earnings, and the real multiple being paid is even less – maybe only 2!!!!

This quote from maximillianos at WMW explains why the give us all your data and we will give you some crappy multiple approach sucks for the prospective seller:

I opted to keep the site and put it on auto-pilot. That was about 9 years ago. Today the site makes more money in a month than what I almost sold it for back then. So maybe the sale falling through is not a bad thing.

In the search game increasing your rank by a few positions can cause a sharp increase in traffic.

Who wants to sell a site that is growing 100% every few months for some *stupid* multiple of backwards earnings? They would have to be an idiot. Certainly the public companies with a 30x P/E ratio are not trading at a 30x multiple because investors are looking backwards.

When you sell a site you must assume that they have more market data than you do. And they probably have more capital. Give them all your site specific data and you just diminish the value of your property while leaving you with no leverage.

Learning From Past Mistakes

But lots of people are stupid enough to give up the data. In the past I was one of them. A person who I mistook as a friend in our industry named a price for a partnership on one project, got as much data as he could, and then pulled out of the deal *at the price he named*!!! They claimed they lacked liquid capital, but at the same time they went on to make offers for other sites we owned (without knowing who owned them). Without even naming who the person was and only stating the above, in our forums another member guessed who it was *because the scumbag had done the exact same thing to him*

The guy was also snooping around one of my friend’s sites a few years back. And so that guy asked a friend of the snooper if the snooper was legit, and the response was “we are friends, but don’t trust that guy.” Too bad I didn’t hear that until after the guy screwed me over. But hopefully this post helps prevent you from getting screwed by fake investors and shady parties not actually interested in your properties.

Do They Eat Their Own Dog Food?

If someone tries to tell you that looting your data is part of their due diligence or purchase process send them a link to this post & tell them Aaron says hi.

Ask them how they disagree with it. And if they don’t disagree with anything in this post, then tell them to give you all their business data. Fair is fair.

And if they won’t share their business information with you then tell them to do the right thing…

Update

I am sick of seeing these companies take advantage of webmasters. And it appears the problem is far worse than I anticipated. Since publishing this post we have already received some emails asking for suggestions about selling sites without handing over all of their analytics data. If you want to ping us just email seobook@gmail.com, and we will see if & how we can help out.

Related posts:

1. Is it Becoming Less Critical For Businesses to Have Websites?
2. Travel And Weather Websites See Big Web Traffic Gains In December
3. How To Start A Web Business And Survive

As the map below shows, these eight states are Arizona, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.  Then another five states are considered swing states, leaving the last 37 under Apple’s control.

Obviously, these findings don’t represent a true victory for Google even if they’re absolute facts.  The states associated with Android aren’t all chockfull of people, and eight to 37 isn’t a good ratio.  Apple fans are sure to point out that Myxer is relatively new to the stats game, as well.

Still, the data indicates that Android’s gained a lot of ground within a certain sample group, and that it’s done so at a more than reasonable pace.  What’s more, Myxer’s promised to update the map every quarter, meaning we’ll get a better idea of how things are trending as time goes by.

According to Myxer, “A total of one million unique users from both the Android and iPhone operating systems were used to make this comparison.”

Related posts:

1. China Won’t Stand in the Way of Google’s Android Business
2. Motorola Slates 20-30 Android Phones For 2010 Releases
3. Google Shopper Android App Launches

The report was carried out by the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, it found only half of the 10 reporting countries had more than a majority of Internet users.

Both developed and less-developed countries reported relatively low percentages of Internet users, including Mexico (32 percent), Portugal (37%), Cyprus and Colombia (45%), Czech Republic (51%), and Chile (55%).

Only three countries and regions report more than 60 percent of respondents as Internet users: Macao (61%), the United States (78%) and Sweden (80%).

“These findings reinforce that the Internet is not yet part of life for hundreds of millions of people around the globe — even in technologically advanced countries,” said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future, which created and manages the World Internet Project.

“And we are seeing large numbers of non-users even in countries with high levels of education and employment, long histories of Internet use, and high percentages of broadband installation.”

The report found notable differences between men and women and their use of online technology. In six of the WIP countries, eight percent or more men than women use the Internet (Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Italy, Macao, Mexico). The gender gap is the largest in Mexico (16% more men than women are Internet users) and Colombia (15% more men than women.

In four of the WIP countries, the gap in Internet use between men and women is four percent or less, with the Czech Republic, Portugal, Sweden, and the United States reporting only slightly higher percentages of men than women as users.

“Countries that reported an average of five or more years of Internet use found key disparities in access to online technology,” said Cole.

“For example, many countries have a long way to go to increase Internet equality among men and women.”

Related posts:

1. Experts Agree The Internet Will Make Us Smarter
2. Stats Put Android Ahead Of iPhone In Eight States
3. Consumers Favor Companies Engaged With Social Media

“Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and rendering of knowledge,” said Janna Anderson, study co-author and director of the Imagining the Internet Center.

“There are still many people, however, who are critics of the impact of Google, Wikipedia and other online tools.”

Two-thirds of those surveyed said reading and writing skills and the rendering of knowledge will be improved by 2020 due to the influence of the Internet.

Eighty percent of the experts agreed that “hot gadgets and applications that will capture the imagination of users in 2020 will often come ‘out of the blue.”‘

The experts were fairly divided on whether anonymous online activity will exist in 2020, with nearly 40 percent predicting that anonymous Internet users will have their access sharply decreased.

“The privacy and civil liberties battles over the next decade will increasingly focus on the growing demands for identity credentials,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“New systems for authentication will bring new problems, as more identity information will create new opportunities for criminals.”

On the issue of an open Internet in the future, nearly two-thirds said the Internet will remain as its founder envisioned.

More than a third chose to agree with the statement “the Internet will mostly become a technology where intermediary institutions that control the architecture and content will be successful in gaining the right to manage information and the method by which people access it.”

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1. Global Internet Use Not Yet Universal

Do you still need a website to be successful online? Share your thoughts.

First off, let me be perfectly clear in that I’m not advising anybody not to have a website. That said, there are a lot of ways to have a web presence without actually having a site, and let’s face it – maintaining a site (let alone a successful one) takes time, money, and resources.

According to data from Compete, Facebook has become a bigger traffic source than Google for some sites, and for many others, it is right up there with Google as a major traffic source. If it can drive the traffic, then that means the people are already at Facebook. You can be on Facebook without having your own website. Businesses can build a Facebook Page, complete with analytics provided by Facebook itself, and they can spend time making that page a good one. Here are some tips on how to do that. Facebook pages are perfectly capable of being found in search engines. In fact, they are often right on the first results page.

You know what else is often right on the first page? A set of local search results from Google Maps, courtesy of Google’s Universal Search integration. Within those results (which are very often right at the top of the SERP) are links to individual businesses’ “Place Pages”. From here, users can find coupons, reviews, store hours, etc. There is a very good chance users will find this before they find your site anyway.

Google is actually going to great lengths to get people using these Place Pages. They are even sending out stickers with barcodes for stores to hang on their windows. When a user scans this barcode with their mobile phone, they will be taken to the business’ Place Page. Social media profiles can also appear on these pages (although so can website links of course).

I probably don’t have to tell you that the web is rapidly becoming more mobile. Smartphone usage and mobile broadband subscriptions continue to accelerate, and people are using a variety of devices, operating systems, browsers, and apps. Making sure you have a site that looks right across all of these is no easy task. This is not so much of a worry when it comes to Facebook pages, Google Place Pages, and other third-party entities.

In many cases, it seems that small business sites are becoming harder to find through organic search. If you look you can find them, but users want convenience, and they are probably not going to look too hard if they can find what they are looking for on the first search results page (or right within Facebook where they’re already spending their time).

Social profiles show in up in search, and often early. The very nature of social media is viral. If one Facebook user becomes a fan of your Facebook page, that user’s friends are going to see it. Then, maybe a couple of them also become fans. Then maybe a couple of their friends become fans, and that trend can continue on and on. The more people who become fans, and the more exposure that page gets, the more chance that page has of acquiring links, which of course can lead to better search engine rankings, not to mention a larger presence on Facebook itself, where a large percentage of Internet users are already spending a great deal of their time. Your reputation and following within the social networks themselves may do your profile well in the eyes of Google too.

If you sell things online, there are obviously many different options out there without having to sell from your own site. In fact, even Facebook and e-commerce are on the road to becoming more and more closely attached. People can buy/sell physical goods through Facebook.

A great deal of focus has been placed on Facebook in this article for the simple fact that it is the world’s most popular social network. That could all change in time. But that doesn’t mean the points would not sill apply to other services. Google is going to be placing a lot of emphasis on Google Buzz this year, and it’s going to become integrated with more and more Google products. Currently, Google profiles are kind of the central place for a Buzz presence. Users can include any links they wish right into that profile (Facebook page, Twitter account, blog, eBay/Amazon listings, etc.)There’s no telling how big Buzz can be, and there’s always the possibility that something else will come along and take the world by storm. And that is one of the reasons…

Why it Still Pays to Have a Site

Can you be successful without a site? I think so. However, having a site gives you a more stable foundation, and still creates more opportunities than if you didn’t have one. When you have a site, you have control. You don’t have to adhere to the policy guidelines of any third-party platform. If Facebook decides to shut its Pages down (as Yahoo did with GeoCities, for example), you still have your own site that they can’t touch. For that matter, having your own site certainly lends credibility to your brand.

Still, social networks continue to work on making data more freely able to flow among one another via a number of open standards like Activity Streams, AtomPub, OAuth, PubSubHubbub, Salmon and WebFinger. “The idea is that someday, any host on the web should be able to implement these open protocols and send messages back and forth in real time with users from any network, without any one company in the middle,” says Google software engineer DeWitt Clinton. “The web contains the social graph, the protocols are standard web protocols, the messages can contain whatever crazy stuff people think to put in them. Google Buzz will be just another node (a very good node, I hope) among many peers. Users of any two systems should be able to send updates back and forth, federate comments, share photos, send @replies, etc., without needing Google in the middle and without using a Google-specific protocol or format.”

Google itself, even has its own site dedicated to making user data for its various products exportable. That’s just Google, but the web in general appears to be moving more in this direction.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a site, or even that you don’t need one, but I think it’s an interesting discussion. For now, I’m going to say having your own site is still in your best interest, but has a more social Internet with more portable data made a standalone site less critical? Is having a website going to be less important in the future? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject. Comment here.

Related posts:

1. Google Makes Facebook Pages a Higher Priority for Businesses
2. A Few Warnings When Selling Online Business Websites

The EWG says the ads and good ratings for those smartphones do not reveal they are some of the highest radiation emitters among the phones currently on the market.

The report found there are three new phones that emit significantly less radiation including Motorola Brute, Pantech Impact and Samsung Mythic.

“A number of health agencies around the world advise people to reduce exposures to cell phone radiation, driven by recent studies raising questions about the safety of this radiation, particularly for children,” said Jane Houlihan, senior vice president for research at Environmental Working Group.

“That’s why it’s essential for consumers to have radiation output information before they purchase phones for themselves and their families.”

EWG has updated its online consumer guide to cell phone radiation, launched last year, to cover the latest mobile devices. The guide contains information on more than 1,000 cell phones and smartphones available in the U.S.

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So let’s take a look at strategies for those starting out, be it in SEO, web design, or other small, web-based businesses. Those of you who have established web businesses, it would be great if you could share your experiences and strategies in the comments

Making The Start

How do you make the start? You’ve got a computer, an internet connection, and a few ideas. How do you get from that point to a thriving business, when you have no customer base, no money and no experience?

Yeah, it’s hard.

But you’ll literally work through it

Society Is Testing You To See If You’re Serious

Ask anyone in business, sports, music or any other competitive human endeavor how they got recognized in their given field. They’ll most likely tell you it didn’t happen overnight. Whilst talent, luck and having the right connections play a part, the one trait common to those who succeed is persistent hard work.

In Outliers, a book about how people achieve extraordinary things, Malcolm Gladwell found that to achieve mastery in anything – be it golf, webdesign, programming, music, fashion – takes roughly the same amount of time: 10,000 hours.

Thankfully, we don’t need to be masters at running a small business before we start one, else no one would ever do so. But the underlying idea is sound – persistent hard work is the key to success.

Being persistent sends a message to those around you, including potential customers, that you’re serious about what your doing. If they see you often enough, doing the thing you say you do, then you’ll eventually be recognized for it.

So if you feel you need to prove yourself, you’re right. Society actually demands you do.

What Is Worth Getting Serious About?

Many people start businesses because they enjoying doing something. Someone who plays sport may have the desire to be paid a good living wage for playing the game she loves. Someone is good at art, so he wants to be a designer.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with this approach – having a genuine passion for something will help you get through the rough times – I’m sure you can spot the potential problem. There might be a LOT of people who have a passion for the same thing. The more people who want to do something, the more effort you need to put in in order to stand out.

In terms of sport, it’s relatively straighforward. The sprinter with the fastest times gets recognized and progresses. Those sprinters with slower times either get better, or go find something else to do. In business, its a little more complicated, but the principle remains the same.

You need to stand out.

Supply And Demand

Think carefully about supply and demand. Ask yourself: is there sufficient demand for what I want to do?

Let’s say you want to do web design. Is there demand? Why, yes, the demand for web design services is almost infinite. New companies start every minute, and most of them will need a web presence. Established companies who already have a web presence change their design from time to time, thus creating even more demand.

All good.

Now let’s look at the supply side.

How many people want to be web designers. The answer is: quite a few. In fact, it would appear that web design demand is more than met by the supply of web designers. What happens in such situations is there is a downward pressure on prices, because those who create demand have a lot of supply to choose from.

The world is oversupplied with web designers. At least, it’s oversupplied by people who call themselves web designers. There’s a difference, of course, between someone who owns the tools of production and those who use those tools well to solve business problems. Owning a camera does not make someone a commercial photographer. Likewise, those with the most artistic design skills may make lousy web designers if they aren’t focused on business aspects.

Recognizing the reality of the situation might may you reconsider your choice of career, and opt for an area where there is heavy demand and short supply instead.

Another way to face this problem is to differentiate. Can you do something better than other designers? You may be highly skilled in contemporary graphic design, in which case you may choose to place strong emphasis on displaying your portfolio, and target the type of clients who appreciate – and will pay for – this expertise.

You may have, or can acquire, detailed market knowledge in one particular niche – i.e. travel sites, real estate sites, etc. Clients, generally speaking, are a lot more comfortable with providers who understand their area of business. You have an advantage if you can speak their language, rather than just the self-absorbed language of design forums.

Can you focus on a geographic area? i.e. the immediate area where you live. Sometimes, people want to deal with someone local.

What is the thing you can do for which there is a market? If there are too many competitors in that market, then slice that market up until you can find a niche. Aim to be top of that niche. Then put in persistent effort working that niche in order to build reputation.

Chris Pearson gave away a number of popular free Wordpress themes on his site, created designs for popular sites (including Copyblogger & SEO Book), and then created the Thesis theme for web developers, which has since done 7 figures in sales volume. Yes Wordpress themes have become commoditized, but due to his strong marketing and continual increase in product value he was able to differentiate & build a solid business model. In his own words on starting out, Chris wrote:

Before I launched Thesis, I created a few free WordPress themes that became extremely popular. Although these themes defined the early stages of my career, they are really nothing more than visible markers of a learning process that continues today with Thesis.

Establishing Yourself

Once you’ve decided on an angle, you then need to establish yourself. Society wants to see how serious you are.

It is very difficult to market a business without some form of track record. But every business needs to start somewhere, and they don’t start with a track record. So, the most important task for someone starting out – in any occupation – is to get one.

One way to get a track record is to treat your first few jobs as a marketing cost. This is the cost of establishing a reputation, and if you make any money at all from these first few jobs, it’s a bonus. The aim is to get referrals and a portfolio of work.

Approach charities or small local business who need a web presence and offer your services for a deeply discounted rate, or for free. It’s a win-win for both parties, because they may not be able to afford web design, and you need their testimonials and experience.

Be sure to make it clear that the job is being done at a discounted rate, and let them know what your usual rate it. This way, they’ll perceive value, and won’t be in for a shock when you ramp your prices up for any future work. Focus on building a positive relationship with these clients. If they are happy with your work, they may well refer you to others.

Once you have a track record, the risk to a future customer of hiring you is diminished. You become a known quantity, which puts you above the wanna-bes.

Is this working for free? Some might consider it that way, but it could also be seen as just another marketing expense, like advertising. Many businesses, including big, established businesses, give away products and services – in the form of loss leaders – in order to help get their foot in the door. People who train for careers pay to learn, whilst as a freelancer, you can potentially learn on the job for free. Clients can teach you a lot about your own business , especially where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Pricing

It’s important not to stay cheap or free, however.

Some think the easiest way to get business is to undercut competitors on price. This can be a self defeating strategy, especially for the sole operator, for a number of reasons:

You get cheap clients – people who seek the lowest price probably aren’t placing much value on what you do. These type of clients, ironically, can also be the most demanding. They want the most for the least, and will often push you on the amount of work you deliver.

Someone else can always undercut you. There will always be a competitor who has a cost base lower than you do. From there, you’re locked in a no-win race to the bottom.

If it looks cheap, it is cheap. It’s human nature not to value something that is cheap, and place a lot of value on something that is expensive. In the book How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer, the author describes an experiment conducted with wine. Participants were told one bottle was cheap and one was expensive. The expensive bottle got rave reviews from tasters, and the cheap one – not so good. However, the labels were switched. The expensive wine was actually the cheap wine.

Perception counts for a lot.

So if your angle is cheap, make sure your margins are still high enough to sustain you. Only you know how much you need to survive at any given time.

Alternatively, target ruthlessly, either by offering a superior, needed product, more niche know-how, or find some other angle where there is untapped demand. Be prepared to prove your worth by providing case studies describing how you’ve solved people’s business problems in the past.

Got any other tips for those starting out? It would be great if you can share what you know

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The user who downloads the 10 billionth song from iTunes will receive a $10,000 gift card from Apple.

“iTunes changed the way you buy music, making songs and albums available for download, day or night,” Apple said.

“Seven years later, we’re about to celebrate our biggest milestone for music, yet – 10 billion songs downloaded. Buy a song, and if it’s the 10 billionth download, you could win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. It’s our way of saying thanks.”

Users will be automatically entered in the contest by downloading a song from iTunes Store or they have an option to enter the contest for free by filling out an online form.  Apple says the promotion is limited to 25 entries per day, per user.

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3. Firefox 3.5 Currently Most Popular Browser in the World

Google

Google allows you to take a virtual tour of the Olympics in 3D. They recently released updates in Google Earth’s 3D Buildings layer, which showcase Olympic venues (54 buildings). Models range from downtown event centers to ski lifts and spectator bleachers. The Official site for the Olympics uses the models itself.

Vectoral Elevation has “an interactive artwork” that allows users to direct light beams and transform Vancouver’s skyline until the end of the month using a custom interface built on Google Earth and Map APIs. It lets users design big light sculptures by directing 20 robotic searchlights located around English Bay.

Google has also taken Street View to Olympics country:

Bing

Microsoft launched a new Bing Maps application that pulls photos from Flickr, associates them with Bing Maps Streetside photos, and overlays them stretching the photo to form fit where in the world it belongs. The app is currently available in Vancouver (among several other places).

Bing actually has a Winter Olympics-specific Maps app as well. “In coordination with NBCOlympics.com, get up to the minute information about the 2010 Winter Olympics in everything from venues to news,” says Bing’s Chris Pendleton. “Click the Venues bar on the left to see the different venues where the events are taking place. Click the Medal Count bar to see every country mapped out with the number of bronze, silver and gold medals awarded to the respective country. Click the Winter Games News and Blogs to get the latest information about the Winter Olympic Games from news sources and bloggers on site. Finally, check out the Winter Games Tweets which filters information from our Twitter Maps application specific to the Olympics.” Bing talks about more Vancouver apps that feature Bing Maps here.

Bing is also giving its home page some Olympics love. It will be updating it with various photos from the events. “And while we’ll show some winners, this won’t be the standard parade of medalists,” says Bing’s Stephanie Horstmanshof. “We’re out to show the great moments from the games: the alpine skier from Ghana, the debut of Ski Cross as an Olympic event, anything to do with curling—all with the stunning imagery that you’ve come to expect on the Bing homepage.”

More ways that Bing and MSN are involved in the Olympics are discussed here.

Yahoo/Flickr

Yahoo has a games-dedicated site, as well as a new Olympic mobile site at m.yahoo.com/olympics. This will provide coverage with live results, upcoming events, medal counts, photos, news, commentary, etc.

Yahoo also has a Yahoo Sports Olympics Coverage app for My Yahoo, that gives you more such information.

On Yahoo’s Flickr, the IOC, the official governing body of the Olympics, has set up their official Olympic photo group for people to share their photos of the events and of Vancouver.

Facebook

The IOC also has an official Olympic Games Page on Facebook. “Through the page, you can stay updated on activities and events at the Games, while sharing your own stories about what the Olympics mean to you,” says Alex Huot, head of social media for the IOC. “You’ll even be able to stay updated on future games even after this year’s Winter Olympics end.”

Alex also encourages people to use Facebook to become a fan of athletes and Olympics teams, play the Vancouver 2010 Official Minigame, and share photos.

Twitter

Twitter has a list of verified athletes from the Olympics who will be tweeting. Fans will of course be tweeting non-stop about things that happen at the Olympics throughout the events.

These are just a few of many ways fans of the Olympics can engage with the events on the web. How are you planning on staying connected?

Related posts:

1. Yahoo And NBC Benefit From Winter Olympics
2. Bing, Google, and Yahoo All Making Maps More Interesting
3. Yahoo Deepens Integration With Facebook